June 21, 2007

The actor has opened [sic] DeVito South Beach, an Italian chop house on trendy Ocean Drive. The signature meal: a $325 trio of steaks from Japan, Australia and the United States that serves three people.

Which is all well and good. But according to DeVito's IMDB entry, he's a vegetarian.

June 13, 2007

One specific side note to add is how reviewing on a DVD boundary is meaningless in context of anime series. Steven likes how Mr. Beveridge does it, but I am getting an impression that he only likes to look at the set of letter grades.

Based on some recent posts here, I can see how someone might get that impression, but it isn't correct. The difficulty is that Chris loads his reviews up with spoilers. So if there's a series I'm sure I won't watch, or that I don't care if gets spoiled, or if it's a series I've already seen, then I can read his reviews.

But if it's something that I think I might be interested in, and if I don't want it spoiled, then I have to avoid the body of his reviews. In that case, I look at his letter grades alone and skip the rest. That gives me at least some hint of whether he thought it was any good without risking ruining anything in case I decide to watch it later.

June 12, 2007

No payola here

Dan writes about the newest advertising gimmick to come along with blogs.

This new scheme apparently pays per undisclosed sponsored link. Include a link from a blog post to whatever dodgy dealer likes the idea of buying these kinds of ads, absolutely do not reveal to anybody in any way that you’re getting paid for it… and get paid for it. Genius!

Harry says he’s now seeing… unusual… links popping up on a number of blogs that also run Text Link Ads.

That really is pretty shabby. But I understand the motivation, unfortunately. A paid testimonial is usually discounted by readers; what seems to be a spontaneous one will be worth more because readers will assume it's sincere. So they're trying to fake sincerity.

You may have noticed that I have said a lot of nice things about Robert's Anime Corner Store. He doesn't give me any money, and our only business relationship is my occasional orders. A couple of times he has tossed in something extra with larger orders, but it's not routine, and I get the impression they do that for other regular customers as well.

The reason I say the things I say is because I think they're true. I praise him and his service because he earns that praise and deserves it. If he ever ceases to deserve that praise, you'll hear that, too.

I don't take payola from anyone, and I never will. As a reviewer, I'm small potatoes -- but I'm honest.

UPDATE: Dan's post was a followup to this post, about pay-per-post advertising. That's pretty scummy, too.

UPDATE: So what about the question of receiving free review copies of DVDs and/or mangas? I think it depends on how that's handled.

I read Chris Beveridge's reviews and I rely on him as being an honest reviewer. I don't always agree with him but I do always believe that he says what he thinks, even though every DVD he reviews is a free review copy.

Perhaps that's due to weight and volume. He's important enough as a reviewer at this point that all the release companies routinely send him free copies of DVDs, and they can't stop doing so even if he pans some of what they send. So such pressure as there might be on him to be positive is slight enough that he doesn't have any difficulty ignoring it. When something really stinks, he says so.

On the other hand, a couple of months ago Basugasubakuhatsu started running reviews of free DVDs and mangas, and I don't think I've seen one yet that wasn't given at least a partial positive review. I don't trust him anymore, and I don't believe what he says. I've largely stopped reading his blog because of it.

I will give him credit for one thing: he admits each time that he's reviewing a free review copy. Even so, it's really hard to believe that everything he's given is as good as he says it is. He may not be under overt pressure to turn out positive reviews, but I sense a conflict of interest: if he starts panning titles, the flow of free goodies may stop.

Myself, everything I've ever reviewed I also paid for. So I have no conflict of interest.

Just to clarify something: I never thought, nor meant to imply that I thought, that Hung was accepting money for writing positive reviews. Given the context of the earlier part of this post, I can see where that could be inferred, and it's my mistake for not making it more clear.

I might, should my readership ever be enough to make it worthwhile, sign up for some paid advertising, much like Shamus has ads on his site. I've even thought about signing up as an affiliate for click-through purchases to Amazon and Robert's -- but I don't think my readership is large enough.

Actually, if I'm wrong, I'll never know, because I deliberately do not put counters anywhere in the bridgebunnies.com domain. I want to write what I feel about writing, and if individual posts (or even the whole site) have counters, then I'm going to obsess over whether I'm drawing "enough" readers with what I'm talking about. (Houblog is a bit of a different matter, since it's written to influence public opinion, among other reasons. So I track its readership.)

I wouldn't object to making some of my hosting expenses back or seeing some other return; outside of ISP and computer/electricity costs (which I'll have regardless), I spend about $400 a year on blogging. That's why I have (the never-used-by-anyone) gift, CafePress and donation links. And I wonder at times if I should take them down for the same reasons as in the prior paragraph. Since no one donates, there's been no need to bother.

2
I just checked out that blog you linked, the first post was a review of 009-1. Talk about a corrupted reviewer! I don't know if I've ever seen such blatant sucking up in my life, and for a series that's really pretty awful. (Hint: 009-1 wasn't mostly ignored by fansub-watchers because ADV liscenced it, that didn't occur until about halfway through the series. It was mostly ignored because the major groups thought it was pure junk. It's an action anime featuring girls with large breasts; if it had even the slightest level of quality like 30 groups would've jumped on it.) I know ANN liked it, but this guy talks about it like its the second coming of Evangelion.

I've never read that guy before, but I'll be sure to stay away from him in the future.

4
We were actually asked to sub it once it became obvious that nobody was going to; I think I put it somewhere near the bottom of the "To do, someday, maybe, possibly, if I'm ever really bored." list, right next to Happiness!, Ryuusei Sentai Musumetto, and the Eko Eko Azarak Live Action series.

I remember being bowled over that ADV had liscenced it, but I guess when you remember that they'd almost bankrupted themselves by overliscensing just before a huge industry downturn, it makes sense. Guess they haven't learned their lesson.

7
My memory was that everyone who commented on 009-1 from fansubs said it was awful, so I've been assuming that Chris Beveridge's good review was an anomaly. It wouldn't be the first time he and I have disagreed.

9
Hmmm, I think the reason it seems like I only ever give good reviews is that I don't grade on a grade system. I just sorta say what I think about the titles. When it comes to writing the conclusion, I include the pros and cons. But I don't say "78/100" or B+/2.

I was looking back and I guess I do tend to be forgiving. I did give "negative" reviews to the Tsubasa Chronicles DVD, and the Bobobo ones, too. And Peach Girl, too. I totally railed on Jojo's Bizarre Adventure.

I honestly did enjoy 009-1. Maybe it's because I had such low expectations? Looking at the post, it is pretty positive, but really, that's how I feel about the series. If I like bad series, I like bad series.

Companies send me free stuff, and that's cool. I guess you're right that I might have some kind of subconscious thing telling me to give good reviews because of that. But they don't pay me. And sometimes they're really difficult to talk to as well. Believe me, if they have a choice of sending to ANN or me, they'll choose ANN.

I did take money to do a review on an anime download service, but I fully disclosed it and I gave them about a negative review as I could.

In the end, I'm just trying to do a lot of reviews, and I really don't make a lot of money from my site (with the ads). Companies give me free stuff and I review it. Call that a conflict of interest if you want, but there's no way I could review this much stuff if I had to pay for it out of pocket.

I really do hope you continue to read Basugasubakuhatsu. I hope I haven't alienated anyone by doing domestic reviews...

Hung, the reason for reading a review is to help me make a decision whether to buy or not to buy a given thing.

A "forgiving" reviewer with "low expectations" is a waste of time. If you're proffering me reviews, then I want you to tell me when something is mediocre, when something is outstanding, and when something is utter crap. That way I know which titles to avoid, because they're probably a waste of money.

Maybe you get that stuff for free, but I pay for what I get. It's easy to be forgiving about something that's free, but a reviewer is supposed to be advising his readers -- and they don't get it for free.

I pan stuff that stinks. I really raked Maburaho over the coals, for instance, because it deserved it.

"If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all." That's a good rule for social discourse, but absolutely terrible advice for a reviewer. A reviewers job is to say nasty things when it's justified to do so.

It's your site; it's your name on it. You write what you want. But I won't be reading it any more, because it's a waste of my time.

12
Hung has responded to this on his blog, here. I would have posted this as an update on the article except that I can't get in right now to post.

Just to clarify something, however: I never thought, nor meant to imply that I thought, that Hung was accepting money for writing positive reviews. Given the context of the earlier part of my post, I can see where that could be inferred, and it's my mistake for not making it more clear.

1
Yeah, yeah. I was already working out what to package with it to get the order over $100 for super saver shipping yesterday, lemme alone.... Sheesh.. My previous order had all the "pre-release" stuff and I requested Robert hold it until complete, so I won't get it until July.

This is going to be something like $300 of animé in two months. My aching credit card! I haven't even finished Outlaw Star, Planetes, or GITS:SAC. Which is more wrong; wasting money by not watching animé I bought, or wasting time by watching something I'm not interested in? Sigh. I think I'll be indecisive about that for a while. Or maybe not.

And I put better warnings up and blacked out more stuff on the post. If you've seen the series, no problem, you'll understand my points. If you haven't, just don't uncover any of them.

2
I keep forgetting that I have Proxomitron rules set up to override all your colors, so I don't see your blackouts. I should have looked at it with Proxomitron disabled before I worried about the spoilers.

3
If I knew enough php to hack the template, I'd create my own spoiler tags. Hmmmm. Maybe someone's already done that I'll search for WP plugins tonight. I've been wanting to hack the comments page for some time to add a formatting bar like the one on your site. You get it if you edit your comments at Mahou, but not when you're creating them for the first time.

1
I've seen "encyclopediadramatica" referenced quite a lot at SomethingAwful, so my guess is that's a "professional" take-the-p-out-of-oneself site, but yes, that sort of thing can be frequently (if winceingly) funny.

5
Found as a disclaimer on ED. They're like Wikipedia, only honest about what they do.

"This article is biographical and about a real person with real
feelings. You can help out by digging up as much crap about them as
possible and posting it here! This article must adhere to the extreme
lulzing of living persons at all times. Unsourced, factually
inaccurate, poorly sourced or potentially scandalous material must be
added immediately."

May 28, 2007

Mortal Kombat! Duh-duh-dede-duh-duh-dede-MORTAL KOMBAT!

Some performers in martial arts films are already trained in martial arts. In a lot of cases they don't have any skill at all, and their fights are choreographed dances. In a few cases (The Matrix) the actors go through intensive training, but that's expensive and they don't usually bother.

You can usually tell when the actors are or are not trained. Those who really do know their stuff do the moves better. Their motions are more crisp; their forms are cleaner. The actors who are just dancing tend to look rather sloppy. It's usually pretty obvious. (Not invariably, though. Zhang Ziyi had no martial arts training before doing Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and I thought her fights were excellent. It perhaps helped that she was a very accomplished dancer.)

When David Carradine did the original Kung Fu series, when I was in college, he was just doing dances. But he got interested in martial arts and spent several years studying and got reasonably good, and his later martial arts sequences are noticeably different.

I have a weakness for the movie Mortal Kombat. As video game adaptations go, this particular one had less to work with than average. The game has only the barest of a story; there's a tournament, and the player's avatar competes in it and tries to win. That's pretty much it.

To make a movie out of it they needed a bit more than that. So they rather arbitrarily decided that Liu Kang, Sonya Blade, and Johnny Cage would be the heroes. Rayden got promoted to deity, as "guardian of the Earth". Shang Tsung became the enemy "boss". It's cheesy, but what makes it work for me is Linden Ashby's performance as Johnny Cage. (And Lambert chewing the scenery, which is always fun.) The Cage character is the source of a lot of comic relief, though the character is also a great fighter and never loses a fight in the film.

It's cheesy. It's a guilty pleasure. I would never claim that it is in any way excellent, but the budget was pretty large, and the special effects are about what they should be for a B-movie like this, and generally the fights are pretty good. But there's quite a wide variety of levels of experience in the martial arts among the performers.

Christopher Lambert doesn't have any experience with martial arts, but the Rayden character never fights. (Or not with his fists; he fights with special effects.) Bridgette Wilson (Sonya Blade) is cute and bouncy but has no martial arts experience at all, and her fights were the worst in the film. (She also gave the worst performance.) Talisa Soto (Kitana) also has no fighting experience, but she only had one fight and got trounced, so it wasn't a problem. Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa (Shang Tsung) was also not well trained, but he did a moderately good job of faking it. (He might have studied some; I'm not clear on that.)

On the other hand, a lot of the actors have a great deal of experience in martial arts. Robin Shou (Liu Kang) has extensively studied a Chinese form called Wu Shu. Chris Casamassa (Scorpion) has a 7th degree black belt in Karate. François Petit (Sub-Zero) has multi-level black belts in four Japanese fighting forms, including a 7th degree black belt in Karate. Keith Cooke (Reptile) is a master of Karate and Wu Shu.

What I can't figure out is Linden Ashby. His bio on IMDB doesn't mention any martial arts training, but his fights are too good for me to believe he hasn't studied. I recall at least one spinning kick, and that's a really tough move to do well. His was fast and crisp. (Of course, I don't know how many takes they had to do.)

If, in fact, Ashby really didn't have any martial arts training then it makes one of the running gags in the film particularly funny. Johnny Cage is portrayed as a movie actor who does martial arts films and is portrayed by a hostile press as being a phony, though he isn't. "You can't fake those moves." But was Linden Ashby, the actor in this martial arts film who portrayed Johnny Cage, actually faking it?

UPDATE: By the way, I really do like the first Mortal Kombat film, but words cannot express just how utterly shitty the sequel was. The only thing about it that was any good was the lady who replaced Wilson as Sonya Blade. Not only was she better looking and a better actress, but her fights were a hell of a lot better. But everything else about the movie sucked more than you can possibly believe.

1
Actually, the outline of the plot of the first MK movie does in fact come from the games. . . just not the first game. Rather, starting with the second game, they retconned in a more extensive framing story. Thus, the general idea ( "Heroic martial artists have to win tournament to keep Shang Tsung from unleashing his master into the mortal world." ) is straight from the games, as are ( some ) elements of the individual character concepts.

Btw, when I hit the 'Add Comment' button, it showed me as Name: Pete Zietzev(sic), with a mail and web entry. I have no clue who that is, but its not anyone who uses this computer. So, you might have a glitch.

Posted by: metaphysician at May 28, 2007 04:28 PM (ZXyXx)

2
You're the second person to say something about that, but I'm not the person who should be hearing about it. Pixy? There may be a serious security issue here.

Mortal Combat was better than it had any business being. I cringed when I found out this was the movie I was watching that night, but It was enjoyable.

Regards your other point, many of the more popular Chinese action stars are actually highly proficient dancers. Jackie Chan comes to mind of course (though he is more in the vein of Buster Keaton than others).

9
It only happens in comments too (right now) - all the other forms require a registered user, and form pages aren't cached anyway. The system doesn't recognise comment pages as form pages, because they're not, really, and because I do want to cache them.

Only saw it once; the acting was pretty bad, and oddly enough, it seemed like the real names did the worst acting.

I enjoy watching people pull off amazing moves, but most kung fu movie
plots and characters turn me off; CTHD was an eye-opener for me just
because of the production quality.

That said, I've watched a few Jackie Chan marathons, and he *is* the
Buster Keaton of Kung Fu. In one movie, he and a couple of pals
keep breaking into arguements that are basically 3 Stooges converted
into Kung Fu. Good stuff, for mindless PWP/Fu Candy.

Now, if you want stupidly over-the-top fu, rent Advent Children.
Yeah, it's not real, but the fu is just silly and jawdropping at times.

That sounded like a pretty ugly combination of apparently unrelated events; I'm amazed you found it so fast.

I really despise "window of opportunity" bugs.

It helped that last time I looked at it I eliminated many possibilities, but mostly it was just on of those flashes of insight that don't come along nearly often enough.Anyway, a patch is in place and the full fix is ready for the next update.

19
Say what? "Roger Rabbit" was based on a book, not on a video game. The book had a real story and a real plot. (Which they changed for the movie, but we'll skip over that part and wave our hands really fast.)

I was at a science fiction convention one time which had a panel in which participated the author of the original "Roger Rabbit" book. And he seemed to be very, very happy with what Disney did with it.

Of course, it made him rich, but I don't think that's the only point. They did change his story but he didn't seem to mind in the slightest.

23
Jackie Chan's autobiography has a section dealing with his working in the Hong Kong movie industry during and shortly after he was schooled inn the Chinese Opera. I thought it was pretty fascinating.

24
Talking about badly faked martial arts moves: the swordplay of Masi Oka playing Nakamura Hiro on Heroes. This was most painfully obvious in the training sequences between Hiro and his father, played by George Takei. It looked like Hiro trained in the school of "Float like a butterfly, sting like soggy oatmeal".

And next season the story line drops Hiro into medieval Japan. Oka-san had better get some special training.

May 27, 2007

Kaneda Tomoko

I'm not one to become fanatical about unimportant things, but I'm on the edge these days of raging fanboyism for Japanese seiyuu Kaneda Tomoko. I am rewatching Hanaukyo Maid Team La Verite so that I can listen to her performance as Grace, having recently heard her as Bel-bel in Petite Princess Yucie. She's probably most famous for doing the voice of Chiyo-chan in Azumanga Daioh and I would say that if someone else had been cast in that role I think the series would not have been as popular as it turned out to be. Irrespective of the other virtues (or faults) of that series, her performance is the standout. I cannot imagine Chiyo-chan with any other voice.

Kaneda's voice is amazing and unique, of course. She's a character actress, because her voice just isn't appropriate for many kinds of roles. (Can you imagine her doing the voice of Yomi? Eek!) But there are a lot of roles she is suited for and in those roles there just isn't anyone better. That's why she's been so busy.

There was a YouTube posted recently somewhere, which I didn't keep the link to, which showed a dubbing session for one complex scene from Azumanga Daioh. The Japanese do those scenes with all the seiyuu together, each having their own mike, and in this case it was the five main characters all at once. (I think it was one of the "hiccup" scenes.) That puts a premium on the seiyuu not screwing up and requiring retakes. If you've got five of them and each of them has a 30% screw-up rate on a long scene, you're going to do a lot of takes, since on average you're only going to get one good take out of seven.

Japanese women tend to the small, of course, but one of the startling things about that video was just how tiny she was compared to all the others. I swear, it looked like she was a head shorter. Tanaka Rie ain't all that tall, at 5'4", but she towered over Kaneda.

There are seiyuu who have put in performances I really like who don't get a lot of work. It occurs to me that the reason is that they need a lot of retakes. Word of that will get around in the industry, I suspect.

Kaneda Tomoko clearly doesn't have that problem. I don't think they'd cut her that kind of slack even with her unique and marvelous voice.

But another reason she gets a lot of work is that she is genuinely talented and has a very broad range. Though the voice is recognizably the same as Bel-bel and Chiyo-chan, one reason I like her performance as Grace is because Grace is so much different of a character, and gives Kaneda an opportunity to stretch as an actress. Smug satisfaction, frustration, fear, anger; Grace is a complex character and the performance must have been a challenging one. Kaneda was brilliant in the role, and in fact she's been brilliant in everything I've ever heard her in.

There's one scene in Petite Princess Yucie where Bel-bel (a pixie) gets netted by Glenda (a demon princess) and as the net swings Kaneda does a kind of vocal riff that was perfect. The guys in the control room must have been in stitches listening to her.

She reminds me of Gene Hackman, as strange as that sounds. When I look at a description of a movie and see that Gene Hackman is in the cast, I know that the film won't be a total loss. He is supremely versatile, and can play any kind of part. And no matter how bad it might be in other ways, Hackman will bring out the best in whatever part he's given, and he'll always be worth watching.

Kaneda Tomoko strikes me that way: any anime she's in can't be all bad. At least I'll get the pleasure of hearing her voice again, and whatever part she plays will be outstanding. In fact, it's enough to make me wonder about series I otherwise haven't heard anything about.

Maybe I should pick up Magikano when ADV finally gets around to releasing it. I see panchira in the teaser art, and Kaneda Tomoko is in the cast. How can I go wrong?

UPDATE: I just checked my own "Future Series" list and see that I had already included Magikano in it, with the notation "ecchi fluff". It's sounding better and better. I wonder when ADV will get around to releasing it?

This is the second consecutive 2006 anime in which voice actress Nogawa Sakura (as Ayumi Mamiya) plays a hateful and psychotic black-magic-using-girl who is attacked by a tentacle monster in a swimming pool. Mai Otome is the first, in which she plays Shiho Huit.

Yikes! Meanwhile, this is the character Kaneda does the voice for. That's no surprise; because of her voice she is typecast doing little girls and cute animals. It's our good fortune that there are so many such parts so that we can enjoy her work.

UPDATE: The Magikano license was just announced. The first DVD is scheduled for December.

1
I initially liked her voice for Chiyo quite a bit, and as you say, her characterization and acting were excellent (Azumanga was particularly blessed in that regard). But by the end of the series, the frequency and overtones of her voice...or possibly the recording/sound processing...really started to grate. I finally had to dial in a high frequency cut of about 1.5dB/octave. The reason I suspect it may be a recording issue is that her voice didn't bother me in HMTlv or PPY.I didn't know about Magikano, but it looks like fun. I like the character designs.

There's a live segment done with her and one other seiyuu included as an omake with the last of the recent Tenchi Muyo DVDs, and based on that I would say that her performance as Grace (in HMTLV) is pretty much her normal speaking voice. For Chiyo and Belbel she seems to have been working to make her voice even higher and more kid-like, but Grace is a different kind of character.

3
If Air Master had continued, would you have tried that? She played a child joshikousei, Renge Inui. (ANN claims that the series is actually a parody.)

On the other licenses announced with Magikano: the lead of Welcome to the NHK may be a hikikomori, but he does save the girl. Pumpkin Scissors is probably the best name since Bubblegum Crisis. Explanation for it here.

Air Master does contain elements that parody genre conventions, either characters like Renge or plot elements, but the series as a whole is not a parody. Well, at least what I've seen, which is only the first half.